On Sunday, Saxony state parliament member André Barth (AfD) won the mayoral election in the winter sports resort of Altenberg by a clear margin. According to preliminary results published by the city administration on its website, the 56-year-old won 61.8 per cent of the vote. Voter turnout was surprisingly high for a local election at 70.8 per cent.
Although the AfD politician had four opponents in the Saxon town, he achieved the required absolute majority in the first round of voting and even exceeded it by a significant margin. The independent candidate Johanna Franz came in a distant second with 21.3 per cent. The other three candidates also do not belong to any party, only to a voters’ association.
Barth had previously served as acting mayor of the town.The previous incumbent, Markus Wiesenberg (CDU), resigned in the summer of 2025 because he felt blocked by the town council. The AfD politician then took over as his deputy.
The lawyer has been a member of the Saxon state parliament for the AfD since 2014. Until 2010, Barth was a member of the SPD. In Saxony, the AfD now has its third city leader. In Großschirma, Rolf Weigand won the mayoral election. And in Pirna, citizens elected Tim Lochner, an independent candidate running for the AfD, as mayor.
Roger Scruton, São Paolo, 3 July 2019 Fronteiras do Pensamento, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The 6th anniversary of Roger Scruton’s death has just passed. Scruton supervised both my M.A. and Ph.D.; I was in the final year of doctoral research when he died. I think of him every day, and when I am working through some challenging academic or political issue, I often imagine him opining on the topic at hand and criticising my assumptions or testing the strength of my conclusions.
I have noticed since Scruton’s death a willingness among many to appropriate his contribution to the West’s intellectual life in such a way as to disfigure his legacy. Some want to present him as a supporter rather than a critic of liberalism; others seek to co-opt him as a rapacious market worshipper; and still others as someone with merely a sentimental attachment to tradition and culture, but with nothing of depth to say about human conduct and the moral life in general.
Those who thus remember Scruton forget what was at the heart of his social philosophy, what he described as “the situated character of the moral agent, bound by unchosen moral requirements.” He explained this ethical point of departure in the following way:
The concept anciently used in articulating these requirements was that of piety—pietas—which, for many Roman thinkers, identified the true core of religious practice and of the religious frame of mind. Piety is a posture of submission and obedience towards authorities that you have never chosen. The obligations of piety, unlike the obligations of contract, do not arise from the consent to be bound by them. They arise from the ontological predicament of the individual.
In one fell swoop Scruton tramples the assumptions on which the liberal theory of freedom and individualism is contingent. Nonetheless, it is striking that Scruton always seems to end up posthumously supporting his appropriators’ positions, and all the while his actual gargantuan philosophical bequest is replaced in people’s minds with a soft, liberal, conciliatory counterfeit in place of the real thing. Already in the minds of many, Scruton was no more than a progressive with a peculiar penchant for tweed jackets.
In reality, he was a far more subversive figure than people seem to realise. To understand why, it is important to remember that for the last few centuries the United Kingdom has been in the grips of two pervasive institutions, the Conservative Party and the Anglican Church. Almost no one seems to have understood the purpose of these two institutions in the history of these isles, and that includes most of their genuinely committed members.
As a people, the British—especially the English—are both profoundly conservative and profoundly religious. Looking at the widespread progressivism and irreligion of the indigenous population today, such a claim may seem risible, but hear me out.
The very raison d’être of the Conservative Party has been that of advancing the cause of revolution under the guise of conservatism. A people with as many agrestic attachments, as much rich history, as many folk traditions and settled ways of living as the peoples of Britain would never have accepted a French-style revolution. Among such a temperamentally conservative people as the British, revolution had to take centuries, not months. That has been the purpose of the Conservative Party, and to its credit it has accomplished its purpose with astonishing success.
When the Conservative Party incrementally deconstructs the family, wrecks the countryside, establishes an open border policy that undermines the native way of life, one can only look on in mystification unless one understands the real mission of the Conservative Party. So too, when the Church of England’s most senior cleric refers to so-called ‘trans-realignment surgery’ (read the mutilation of children and venerable adults) as a “sacred journey,” when the institution celebrates homosexuality, organises Muslim calls to prayer within its churches, and contradicts elementary biblical teaching in myriad ways, its notion of ministry seems confusing unless the point of its existence is understood.
For just as the mission of the Conservative Party has been that of advancing revolution under the guise of tradition, so too the purpose of the Church of England has been that of advancing apostasy under the guise of Christianity. The rapid demise of these two institutions is largely indicative of their success. Without the unrelenting effort of these two co-dependent organisations, peoples as deeply conservative and religious as those of Britain would never have become so modernist and nihilistic.
Now, back to Scruton. He embodied all that those two organisations sought to destroy. He was an avatar of an old England which was being unremittingly trampled. He had sought and found that old England against all odds and had made it present again in his very being. It was indeed his anamnestic presence that attracted so many of us during his lifetime.
Everything he loved and defended—the primacy of marriage and family; fieldsports and farming; the received legal tradition of his country as impartial and unabusive; the monarchy as an object of loyalty that transcended fads and celebrity hysteria; the role of Christianity as providing a sacred membership of moral relations rendered honest and redemptive before God; and all the unexamined respect for tradition, custom, and hierarchy that had served this land so well—all this was what needed to be deconstructed by the Conservative Party and the CofE. And Scruton denounced their respective stances whilst appearing to speak for them.
In 2013, in the height of the Tory ascendency succeeding Labour Prime Ministers Blair and Brown, Scruton wrote the following about what he beheld:
Abstract ideas and utopian schemas threaten to displace practical wisdom from the political process. Instead of the common law of England we have the abstract idea of human rights, slapped on us by European courts whose judges care nothing for our unique social fabric. Instead of our inherited freedoms we have laws forbidding ‘hate speech’ and discrimination that can be used to control what we say and what we do in ever more intrusive ways. The primary institutions of civil society—marriage and the family—have no clear endorsement from our new political class. Most importantly, our parliament has, without consulting the people, handed over sovereignty to Europe, thereby losing control of our borders and our collective assets, the welfare state included.
It wasn’t Labour Scruton was criticising here, but the party he claimed to defend. Indeed, the Blair government’s position on immigration, for example, was by then the stuff of right-wingers’ dreams. Our current Labour government’s relentless attack on Britain and its culture would never have been possible were it not for the decades of civilisational and national erosion that preceded it by those who postured as the nation’s conservers.
But Scruton, very subversively, did his own posturing. Scruton appeared as the Conservative Party’s foremost advocate as well as the CofE’s foremost defender whilst simultaneously undermining the entire trajectory to which they were together committed. Thus, he was, quite unwittingly, these two institutions’ most disruptive dissident. I say ‘unwittingly’ because his deep-felt affection for both the Conservative Party and the established Church was real, but it was an affection for a party and a church that the present manifestations had entirely betrayed and had no interest in retrieving.
It is because Roger Scruton was such a subversive figure, devastatingly undermining the two institutions he appeared to uphold, that it has not only been necessary to conjure up innumerable counterfeits of the man since his death, but both the CofE and the Conservative Party have striven to bury him in an unmarked grave as quickly as possible.
This, though, does not overly bother me. As it happens, I think Scruton’s time has not yet come. There are generations before us who will discover him, pick up his books and listen to his online lectures, and his contributions will appear as laments over a once great but since decayed civilisation. Amid the rebuilding, what he bequeathed will be essential for carving out a path ahead.
The key challenge of our age is that of uprootedness. We are all uprooted from our religious inheritance, from our cultures, from the normalities of family life and intergenerational reliance. Through individualism, we’re uprooted from the kind of interdependence that makes us morally accountable to each other and hence moral at all, and we’re uprooted from our own ancestral wisdom tradition, our history, and thus from anything our antecedents might have bestowed upon us as a roadmap for times to come. To quote Archduke Otto von Habsburg, “Someone who doesn’t know where he’s from, doesn’t know where he’s going, because he doesn’t know where he stands.”
Deracination—uprootedness—is the fundamental condition, or rather ailment, of modern man. The antidote to deracination is initiation. And initiation into our own civilisational inheritance and birthright is precisely what Scruton sought repeatedly to provide. Indeed, that is what he continues to offer to his readership, and what he will give to those who turn to him in generations to come.
Scruton was recurrently able to describe our moral bankruptcy in a way that was utterly shattering precisely because it was so true. In presenting the widespread way in which children are raised today, he wrote the following:
You will find … a kind of Satanic attempt to catch last glimpses of the sacred, in the actions that wipe it away. It is this, I believe, that explains the extraordinary rise of child pornography—a practice that is not confined to the images that are available on the Internet, but to the most ordinary ways that people have adopted of dressing and addressing their children. The 8-year-old girl in G-string and ear-rings is simultaneously childlike and knowing, a creature torn between worlds, and on the verge of desecration. By dressing their children in this way, and encouraging them to copy the lubricious dances and sensual throes of their parents, people are conjuring out of the sewer of desecration a last, sad image of the human form in its innocence, as the currents of pollution bear it away.
Scruton saw in that sexualised prepubescent—now such a ubiquitous creature on our streets—a concentrated example of our collapsing society, the weakness of which new arrivals have fully exposed by directing their appetites at such children. In turn, many now realise that an entirely revisionist approach will be required to resuscitate the United Kingdom following its suicide, a fatality that the current Labour government is accelerating in order to ensure. And precisely because Roger Scruton was so subversive, his legacy will play an important if indirect role in that resuscitation.
An illegal migrant with a deportation order has been arrested on suspicion of raping a 90-year-old woman this week in France.
Nice prosecutors said on Saturday evening that they have arrested a 29-year-old illegal migrant from Tunisia over the alleged “rape of a vulnerable person”.
The illegal, who tested positive for cocaine and cannabis at the time of his arrest, admitted to entering the 90-year-old woman’s apartment, but denied that he raped her, according to Le Figaro.
The paper reported that on Thursday evening, police were called to the scene by the alleged victim, who told them that she had suffered “several acts of penetration” and was hospitalised with injuries to her arms, hands and legs.
The suspect was quickly found squatting in an apartment next to the alleged victim with other illegal immigrants. While he reportedly had no criminal record, the 29-year-old suspect had previously been issued an OQTF (Obligation de Quitter le Territoire Français) order requiring his deportation from France.
The deportation system in France has come under heavy scrutiny in recent years, with several high-profile crimes involving migrants with OQTF orders, including the killing of 19-year-old student Philippine Le Noir de Carlan in Paris in 2024.
The government has a dismal record in removing migrants with OQTF order, with just 9,160 of the 134,000 illegals with deportation orders being kicked out of the country in 2002, a mere 6.9 per cent success rate.
The dismal performance from Paris has seen increased demand for migration reform. According to a survey in October, nine in ten French voters would back a scheme to detain migrants with deportation orders in jail until they are removed from the country.
While the German Green Party frequently parade themselves as climate protectors who support organic food and eating local, their recent maneuvering over the Mercosur trade agreement has exposed a staggering level of environmental hypocrisy. Despite a platform built on reducing carbon footprints and protecting biodiversity, the party is fracturing over a deal that would facilitate shipping food halfway across the globe, flood European markets with products grown with high pesticide loads, and further incentivize the destruction of the South American rainforest.
The Green delegation in the European Parliament recently voted to delay the agreement by referring it to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). While they frame this as a “legal review,” critics see a party that is happy to champion environmental standards at home while entertaining a trade deal that lacks binding controls for violations in the Amazon rain forest, along with plenty of other vulnerable environments in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
This internal rift in the Greens has sparked public infighting. German Green Party leader Felix Banaszak is attempting to balance the party’s “firewall against the right” with the reality that his own MEPs effectively voted with many right-wing parties in the EU parliament. The vote means that the Mercosur agreement could be delayed by up to 18 months.
The Greens are notorious for betraying their party roots, including their previous anti-war stance that the party was founded on. However, their latest positioning on the Mercosur agreement is truly astounding, as nearly every aspect of the free trade agreement violates their core tenets.
Rainforest destruction
Studies and government analyses cited by critics estimate that the agreement could increase deforestation in the Mercosur region by at least 5 percent per year over a period of six years. One study suggested up to 700,000 hectares of forests could be destroyed in the first year alone due to increased beef exports, according to a Veblen Institutestudy.
According to Earth.org. “Globally, 80 percent of the land cleared for cattle grazing and animal feed monocultures is used for meat production. In Brazil, the world’s largest beef exporter, cattle farming is the single largest driver of Amazonian deforestation and conversion of native vegetation to areas of pasture. Here, the rate of deforestation increased by 60 percent between 2016 and 2020, with approximately 580,000 hectares (5,800 square kilometers) of forest cut down in one year to create pastures.”
Any Green Party voters are notorious for being opposed to pesticides, which have been linked to a threat to human health, environmental destruction, and the ongoing eradication of insect populations.
Pesticides
In fact, former German Minister of Agriculture Cem Özdemir, who is now locked in an election battle to lead Baden-Württemberg, has now turned on his own colleagues for their “lack of pragmatism.”
“Apparently, too many still don’t understand the seriousness of the situation. European sovereignty must prove itself in concrete action, the time for cheap lip service is over,” Özdemir posted on X.
Incredibly, he wants to bypass the EU parliament, the only real democrtically elected body in Brussels, and explicitly encourage EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to bring the agreement into force provisionally. In other words, he wants no delay to Mercosur and believes von der Leyen should bypass the parliament’s vote.
There is big business at stake for Europe, after all. Germany accounts for 16 percent of the sales of pesticides to Mercosur, while France accounts for 37 percent, according to Greenpeace. Brazil is the largest consumer of pesticides in the entire world, and much of that pesticide use is being deployed on former rainforest, which has been burned and clear-cut to make room for massive monoculture crops and cattle farming. Greenpeace further writes:
“Brazil‘s agriculture model is based mainly on large-scale monoculture systems producing agriculture commodities. This agriculture business model is dominated by large corporations and is closely linked to the destruction of natural ecosystems such as forests. It requires large amounts of natural resources, emits greenhouse gases and is especially dependent on the use of pesticides that pose great risks to humans and the nature.According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 20, around 380,000 tonnes of toxic substances ended up on Brazil‘s farmland in 2017 (around 634,000 square kilometers at that time 21). To meet the high demand for pesticides, Brazil imports large quantities of pesticide active ingredients, which are subsequently further processed in the country.”
Remarkably, Özdemir has previously been a central figure in efforts to restrict and ban various pesticides, both within Germany and at the European Union level. As the former federal minister of food and agriculture, he has championed several key initiatives aimed at reducing chemical pesticide use.
Özdemir was a vocal supporter of the EU’s Sustainable Use Regulation (SUR), which aimed to cut chemical pesticide use by 50 percent across the EU by 2030.
Now, his promotion of Mercosur would flood Europe with the same chemicals he was previously trying to ban or greatly reduce. Özdemir is, in short, a remarkable hypocrite.
The deal would create one of the world’s largest free trade zones, yet it offers little to address the “boomerang pesticides” that are banned in the EU but used in Mercosur states. The lack of enforceable safeguards means that while the Greens talk about “EU standards,” they are implicitly backing a system where environmental protections are compromised for market access.
After all, the deal is labeled the “cows-for-cars” trade deal for a reason. German companies, including automobile manufacturers and chemical companies, want access to South America, and for the Greens in Germany, business interests, lobbyists, and mega agricultural corporations now come first. The Mercosur agreement will tighten the screws on organic farmers, who will find it even harder to compete against cheap and substandard South American food.
The left turns its back on climate change
Özdemir is far from the only high-ranking German Green Party official slamming the Greens who voted against the deal. Current MP and former Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety Jürgen Trittin criticized the EU parliament voting bloc as being “without a compass.” He even went so far as to say that the Green MEPs contributed “to the right-wing farmers’ lobby and anti-Europeans blocking a step towards greater EU sovereignty by a 10-vote majority.”
While the Greens often attack Chancellor Friedrich Merz for accepting AfD votes in the Bundestag, Banaszak found himself making excuses for the same behavior in Brussels. He argued that „The situation is complex,“ and tried to distance the Greens’ coordination from Merz’s past actions: „What Friedrich Merz did in the German Bundestag last year: He knew he would ultimately have a majority with the AfD. And he accepted that.“
Banaszak admitted he was “not happy“ with the optics, stating: „I deeply regret that such a vote has now been held and that this result has been achieved. But one must acknowledge that the situation in the European Parliament is different.“
It is not just the Greens either. Other left-wing parties that claim that climate change is at the top of their agenda, such as the Social Democrats (SPD), are slamming the move to temporarily block the Mercosur deal.
“The fact that some Greens, together with AfD and Left Party, are delaying the entry into force of the Mercosur agreement in the current political situation is politically stupid and instinctless,” stated Dirk Wiese, the first parliamentary secretary of the SPD.
On a broader scale, the fact that much of the left in Europe voted for Mercosur should bury the idea once and for all that any of these people care about the rainforest, local food production, the environment, or climate change.
Remarkably, it is now the European right that played the decisive role in stopping the Mercosur agreement.
Do we now live in a world where the right cares more about climate change and farmers’ rights than the Greens? Looking at this monumental vote against Mercosur, it certainly looks like it.
The Metropolitan Police have arrested 86 people on suspicion of aggravated trespass after they breached prison grounds while protesting in support of a Palestine Action prisoner on hunger strike.
The force said it had detained a number of people outside HMP Wormwood Scrubs in west London.
Some 86 Palestine Action activists have been arrested for trespassing Wormwood Scrubs Wikimedia Commons, Chmee2, CC-BY-SA-3.0
Activists are accused of refusing to leave the ground when ordered to do so, allegedly blocking prison staff from entering and leaving, as well as threatening police officers.
The Met said a series of protesters got inside a staff entrance area of a prison building.
It is understood the protesters did not get past security.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman described the incident as “deeply concerning”.
They said: “The escalation of the protest at HMP Wormwood Scrubs is completely unacceptable.
“While we support the right to peacefully protest, reports of trespassing and threats being made to staff and police officers are deeply concerning.
“At no point was prison security compromised, however where individuals’ actions cause risk or actual harm to hardworking staff, this will not be taken lightly and those responsible can expect to face consequences.
“Prisoners are being managed in line with longstanding policy.
“This includes regular checks by medical professionals, heart monitoring and blood tests, and support to help them eat and drink again. If deemed appropriate by healthcare teams, prisoners will be taken to hospital.”
Footage posted on social media showed a group of people chanting outside the prison.
One video showed the group moving towards the building, with another featuring activists inside.
He is the last remaining participant in the Prisoners for Palestine hunger strike campaign, according to the group.
Seven others stopped eating in protest at charges linked to alleged break-ins and criminal damage carried out on behalf of the banned Palestine Action group.
Mr Khalid briefly paused his hunger strike in December due to health concerns, but has since resumed and is now refusing to drink water.
The 22-year-old has been in custody since his arrest over alleged involvement in disorder at RAF Brize Norton, where activists caused millions of pounds worth of damage.
He denies charges of criminal damage and entering a prohibited place for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the UK.
The Free Umer Khalid campaign urged supporters to attend a “solidarity protest” outside HMP Wormwood Scrubs at 8pm on Saturday.
Videos posted on the group’s social media seemed to show demonstrators inside a locker room in the prison.
HMP Wormwood Scrubs is a high-security Category B prison located in White City, west London, within the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.
Lord Biggar, author of Reparations: Slavery & the Tyranny of Imaginary Guilt, and NCF Senior Fellow Rafe Heydel-Mankoo are two of Britain’s most prominent speakers on slavery reparations and the positive legacy of the British Empire. They join forces for this special conversation so that they can spend more time expanding on their arguments, something not possible in traditional interviews and debates. Lord Biggar’s new book: Reparations: Slavery & the Tyranny of Imaginary Guilt, may be purchased here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reparations-…
German authorities have arrested a Lebanese national on suspicion of being a member of Hamas and plotting attacks on Jewish and Israeli institutions in Europe, the BBC reported.
The suspect was detained at Berlin’s Brandenburg Airport on Friday evening after arriving on a flight from Beirut, according to the report.
Federal prosecutors said the man helped procure 300 rounds of ammunition in August 2025 and was involved in an alleged plan to carry out attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets. He is expected to appear before a federal judge who will determine whether he will remain in pretrial detention.
Hamas is designated a terrorist organization by the US, UK, Israel, and numerous other countries. Germany banned the activities of Hamas and affiliated organizations following the group’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
German investigators say the suspect worked with one of three alleged Hamas terrorists arrested last October in Berlin during what authorities described as a weapons handover. Two of those suspects are German nationals, while the third is Lebanese. Police searches were also conducted in Leipzig and Oberhausen at the time, according to Der Spiegel.
In a separate case, German authorities arrested another suspected Hamas member – also a Lebanese national – near the Czech border in November.
A year prior, German federal prosecutors announced that they have charged four alleged members of Hamas, accusing them of acquiring and storing weapons for the group in Europe.
The suspects include two individuals born in Lebanon, an Egyptian national, and a Dutch citizen, all facing charges of “membership in a foreign terrorist organization,” according to a statement from the federal prosecutor’s office.
Prosecutors alleged the men “held important positions within the association with direct ties to leaders of the military wing” of Hamas.
The four suspects were apprehended in December 2023. Dutch citizen Nazih R. was arrested in Rotterdam by local authorities, while the other three were detained in Berlin.
By now it shouldn’t be surprising when Catholic clergy counter-signal President Trump. It happened first when Pope Francis attacked him for wanting to build a border wall in 2016. It happened in December of last year when Leo indirectly rebuked him for his peace plan in Ukraine, which he said would “break apart” the U.S.’s “alliance” with Europe. And it happened again earlier this month when three of the most liberal members of the American Church’s hierarchy pushed back on his foreign policy.
On January 19, Cardinal Blase Cupich, Cardinal Robert McElroy, and Cardinal Joseph Tobin, C.Ss.R. published what several mainstream media outlets rightly noted was an “unusual” statement subtly rebuking the Trump administration for its approach to international affairs, a topic that under former president Joe Biden the three oddly never opted to weigh in on.
While specifically mentioning Venezuela, Ukraine, and Greenland, Cupich, McElroy, and Tobin expressed concern about national sovereignty across the world being under attack. They also worried that “the building of just and sustainable peace” is being “reduced to partisan categories that encourage polarization and destructive policies.”
“Our country’s moral role in confronting evil around the world, sustaining the right to life and human dignity, and supporting religious liberty are all under examination,” they argued. They further claimed that the “moral foundation for American policy is beset by polarization, partisanship, and narrow economic and social interests.”
Seemingly referencing cuts to USAID, they also worried that “wealthy nations” are wanting to “reduce or eliminate their contributions to humanitarian foreign assistance programs.”
It doesn’t take an advanced college degree to know what is being said here. The cardinals are clearly upset that the Trump administration is seeking to implement a more realist America-first foreign policy that withdraws the U.S. from serving the interests of the liberal world order that was constructed in the 20th century following the Second World War. They are also paranoid over the possibility that the U.S. will no longer provide a free ride for Europe and that its longtime promotion of UN and globalist-backed groups is coming an end. If one ever needed proof the Deep Church is the handmaid of the global Deep State, this letter is it.
What is especially concerning – though not unpredictable – about this letter is that while it rightly speaks of peace among nations, it fails to mention the fact that peace can only be brought about by a conversion of nations to the Catholic religion. “When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony,” Pope Pius XI’s 1925 encyclical Quas Primas reads.
Being the liberals that they are, it is rather rich to hear Cupich, McElroy, and Tobin speak of their concern for “abortion and euthanasia” and how “the right to life” and “religious liberty” are being violated.
First, do they not know that the Trump administration has aggressively called out religious liberty violations taking place across the world, especially in places like Nigeria, but also here in the U.S., where it has taken the government’s boot off the neck of Christians and pro-life groups?
Second, on dozens of occasions over the last decade Cupich, McElroy, and Tobin have repeatedly sought to downplay the intrinsic evil of abortion while trying to upgrade “social justice” issues like gun control and “climate change.” Seeing them express concern over the killing of preborn children when the Trump administration has broadly sought to prevent that from happening is puzzling.
Third, when Joe Biden spied on Latin Mass attendees and persecuted pro-lifers like Mark Houck, Cupich, McElroy, and Tobin did not issue a joint letter. Deciding to speak up now when, in years past, they were silent on the violations they say they are now deeply concerned about reeks not only of Trump Derangement Syndrome but of a blatant political decision meant to give moral cover to liberals who want to attack the administrations’ efforts.
Other American clergy and laity have fretted about the U.S.’s foreign policy as well. Earlier this month heterodox Catholics were furious when the Trump administration announced it was withdrawing from over 60 leftist international organizations. In a statement provided to left-wing outlet National Catholic Reporter, Bishop Elias Zaidan claimed that the decision will “have painful and direct repercussions on the lives of vulnerable populations and God’s creation already suffering from a changing climate.” Zaidan chairs the USCCB’s Committee on International Justice and Peace.
Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio, however, defended the administration’s decision. In a press release titled “Withdrawal from Wasteful, Ineffective, or Harmful International Organizations,” Rubio rightly complains that, “what started as a pragmatic framework of international organizations for peace and cooperation has morphed into a sprawling architecture of global governance, often dominated by progressive ideology and detached from national interests.”
He continues: “From DEI mandates to ‘gender equity’ campaigns to climate orthodoxy, many international organizations now serve a globalist project rooted in the discredited fantasy of the ‘End of History.’ These organizations actively seek to constrain American sovereignty. Their work is advanced by the same elite networks – the multilateral ‘NGO-plex’ – that we have begun dismantling through the closure of USAID.” This is precisely what Cupich, McElroy, and Tobin oppose.
U.S. Nuncio Christophe Pierre delivered a speech late last year on the Church’s assessment of current political movements. While some left-wing Catholics see his critique of “woke culture” and “post-liberalism” as being nuanced, at the end of the day, his remarks failed to see things correctly, as he hyperbolically mischaracterized the rise of nationalism in the face of globalism as being pushed by “ultra-conservatives” who are leading persons “towards authoritarian temptations or towards a fundamentalism that contradicts the legitimate plurality of modern life.” This is tantamount to defending the status quo.
The Trump administration and the Church hierarchy’s will continue to be at odds with one another, as their visions for the future of the international order are rooted in diametrically opposed principles. Whereas one sees “climate change,” open borders, and entities like the UN as outdated and even harmful initiatives of a failed liberal system that is suppressing a much needed adaptation to a changing world order, the other sees them as necessary and beneficial to maintaining the old way of doing things on the world stage.
Keir Starmer has been forced into an embarrassing climbdown after U.S. president Donald Trump tore into Britain’s plan to give away the Chagos Islands, triggering legal alarms and exposing fresh cracks in the UK’s security policy.
The British prime minister quietly pulled legislation that would have handed the Indian Ocean archipelago to Mauritius, just days before it was due to be debated in parliament. The retreat followed blunt warnings that the deal could breach a binding UK–U.S. defence treaty—and a withering public attack from the White House.
Trump did not mince his words. Posting on Truth Social, the U.S. president called the proposed handover “an act of great stupidity,” warning that surrendering strategically vital territory weakened Western security at a time of growing global tension. His intervention landed heavily in London, where officials were already struggling to justify the plan.
At the heart of the row is Diego Garcia, a remote island that hosts one of the most important military bases in the world. Built in the 1970s, the base has been used by U.S. and British forces to project power across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. It is widely seen in Washington as irreplaceable.
Under Starmer’s proposal, Britain would give up sovereignty over the Chagos Islands but lease the base back from Mauritius—effectively paying to retain access to territory it currently controls. Critics have dismissed the arrangement as strategically absurd and legally dangerous.
Those legal concerns proved decisive. A UK–U.S. treaty signed in 1966 explicitly states that the Chagos Islands “shall remain under United Kingdom sovereignty.” Opposition lawmakers warned that ratifying the deal without first rewriting that treaty would place Britain in breach of international law and undermine the legal foundations of the U.S. military presence.
Ministers admitted that talks with Washington to update the treaty were still unfinished. Despite that, Starmer’s government had been pushing ahead, insisting the deal was necessary for “security reasons” and to draw a line under decades of legal disputes with Mauritius.
Starmer has leaned heavily on a 2019 advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice, which suggested Britain should relinquish control of the islands. But the ruling is non-binding and carries no force over bilateral defence treaties—a point repeatedly highlighted by critics.
The Chagos controversy is also entangled with unresolved claims by displaced islanders, whose mistreatment decades ago remains a stain on Britain’s record. Opponents argue that handing the territory to Mauritius does little to address those injustices while creating new strategic risks.
